Camp Cretaceous Tells Its Own Version Of Jurassic Park 3's Hidden Story

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Camp Cretaceous season 2 is about six teenagers surviving alone on Jurassic World, which is a spin on Jurassic Park III's teen hero's unseen subplot.

Warning: SPOILERS for Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous season 2.

Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous season 2 details how the show's six teenage Campers survived on Isla Nublar and it told a different spin on a similar subplot in Jurassic Park IIICamp Cretaceous season 1 ended with Darius (Paul-Mikel Williams), Brooklynn (Jenna Ortega), Kenji (Ryan Potter), Sammy (Raini Rodriguez), Yasmina (Kausar Mohammad), and Ben (Sean Giambrone) stranded on Isla Nublar after the events of the 2015 Jurassic World film. But they're not the first kids to be lost alone on an island of dinosaurs - Jurassic Park III's Eric Kirby (Trevor Morgan) was.

Directed by Joe Johnston, Jurassic Park III began with 12-year-old Eric and his family's friend Ben (Mark Harelik) parasailing near Isla Sorna, AKA Site B, where the dinosaurs had been loose since before the events of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Their boat is attacked by dinosaurs, which resulted in Ben and Eric being forced to glide into the island. By the time Eric's parents, Paul (William H. Macy) and Amanda (Tea Leoni), hired Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) to lead a rescue mission to find their son, Eric had been lost in Isla Sorna for 8 weeks (and Ben had died). Grant found Eric, who made a shelter in an overturned water truck, and the boy had managed to survive on the island all by himself. Eric knew the terrain and the dinosaurs of Isla Sorna well enough that he was invaluable in helping Dr. Grant and his parents navigate the island and its prehistoric creatures until they were rescued.

Camp Cretaceous season 2 did a variation of Eric's unseen story and delved into how the six Campers managed to survive after the fall of the Jurassic World theme park. The kids were left behind by the island's evacuation, and Camp Cretaceous season 2 picks up immediately afterward, with Darius, Brooklyn, Sammy, Yasmina, and Kenji trying to come up with a strategy to stay alive and call for a rescue. This involved returning to the park's Main Street to look for food and also learning that there was an emergency distress beacon which, unfortunately, the T-Rex made part of its nest. Working together, the Campers distracted the Tyrannosaur so that Darius and Kenji could activate the beacon. Later, the kids returned to the site of the Camp Cretaceous treehouse, which the Indominus Rex destroyed in season 1, and they rebuilt it to be their home - a far better place to live than Eric's makeshift overturned water truck.

Eric's story in Jurassic Park III actually has a bit more in common with what happened to Ben, who was separated from the others and presumed dead when he fell from the monorail. Ben not only survived, alongside his pet Ankylosaur named Bumpy, but the sheltered and neurotic boy also underwent a gradual transformation into a survivalist who was at home in the jungle. Unlike his fellow Campers, who had each other to rely on, Ben spent almost a month on his own (with Bumpy) and had to learn to thrive on Isla Nublar before he reunited with his friends in the back half of Camp Cretaceous season 2.

However, Eric's ordeal was 8 weeks before he was rescued, which is far more time than the Campers spent alone in Jurassic World. There's a time jump during Camp Cretaceous season 2 so that about 22 days pass in between episodes 2 and 3, but that's still less than half the total time Eric spent alone in Jurassic Park III. But Eric was able to rely on his passion and expertise about dinosaurs that he got as someone who read Dr. Alan Grant's books.

Similarly, Darius is also a dinosaur expert who is knowledgeable about Alan Grant, and his dino smarts continue to pay off for himself and his Campers. While Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim Murphy (Joseph Mazello) were the original kids lost in Jurassic Park, they always had Dr. Grant with him. Eric Kirby, who would be about 26 during the events of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, was the true forerunner of the Netflix animated series' teenage heroes.

Source: https://screenrant.com/